Transition and the worlds we never see

So once again busy busy busy. Naturally after two long weeks of experiments my supervisor came all the way from the UK to visit for a whole week. This meant little rest, lots of meeting and some very exciting developments. It seems that he is confident in the results I obtained early this month, I’m glad someone is, and really wants to push forward with obtaining time using the XFEL. That's the main reason I haven’t blogged much, I’ve been too busy writing the proposal.

This marks a big turning point in my research I feel. I’m finally starting to feel like the project is mine rather than just picking up the pieces of someone’s work. I feel a bit more confident talking about it and arguing it’s relevance with others, can only be a good thing right?

Transition is the word I used in the title because I’m getting there, just not all the way yet. I think most of life is spent in this state and in fact that's also hit home recently. I’m finally starting to get comfortable in this country, whilst no A grade conversationalist I can express feelings and ideas a bit more now rather than basic wants. I feel more confident as a scientist, a colleague who is 12 years my senior not only asked me for some advice on an experiment but listened it.

It’s been pretty wild but I’ve definitely come out of these past two months standing a little bit taller and firmer. I can’t believe that I’ll have been here a year next month. Frankly speaking two years ago I never thought I’d have made it to a PhD and here I am.

Transition and change are what make life so exciting and scary. Transitions can be beautiful and problematic, usually both at the same time. We may hate the instability but they usually contain an incredible moment of calm where things just start to make sense. Suddenly the changes are just happening without any real effort.

It was this realization that actually made me pay a bit more attention to where I was going on my way to renew my visa today, a wonderful experience in Japanese bureaucracy as always. I had to head to the port on the southside of Himeji.

The weather was rubbish, spatters of rain and heavily overcast, so as usual I plugged in my headphones and sat down with a book on the bus. The journey was a good 2 hours on public transport from my house to the immigration office so I thought I’d get a bit of reading done.

I’m not sure when but on the way to the port I noticed out of the corner of my eye that all the buildings had started to change. Suddenly the high rises disappeared and fairly shabby looking old buildings surrounded me. I’d never been to the south side of Himeji and it was in stark contrast to the built up city centre. This shouldn’t be so strange really but it’s so easy to get wrapped up in your usual routine that you can miss the new little worlds that surround you.

In fact it hit me then that I was starting to let living here become routine. I’m not sure if this is good or bad but Japan still has so many surprises to offer. I’m vowing now to try and take opportunities to travel and experience whenever I can. I’m happiest in transit I think so maybe I should spend more time that way.

The port itself isn’t so impressive really, though that may just have been the poor weather. I was hit by some massive nostalgia though. Some aspects really reminded me strongly of the Pier head back home and, looking at a stair set opposite the bus station, I couldn’t help but be transported to that fifteen year old mosher state thinking about the best tricks I could pull off down it on my board.

I took this new mindset back to central Himeji with me. I got off the bus early so I could take a leisurely stroll back to the station. I walked down the main high street with my newbie eyes on, taking everything in. It was nice just being excited by the freshness again, and that I could still make new discoveries. I noticed a Fugu restaurant on the way back.

Fugu is the infamous Japanese puffer fish that if prepared incorrectly can kill. Kind of brings new meaning to the term dicing with death. I’ve not tried it yet, I’ve not fancied going into a restaurant on my own. Although people have assured me I’m not really missing anything I think I need to give it a go at least once.

One more exciting thing. I’ve been entered into the I’m a Scientist get me out of here competition run by the BBSRC. For a whole month I’ll be interacting with secondary school kids up and down the UK answering their questions about my research and life as a researcher. I’m equally excited and apprehensive.

I have no idea what kind of questions to expect or how I’m going to find the time. Still it should be fun all the same and I always bang on about the importance of scientists communicating their science, especially to young people. It’ll be a great experience anyway, I just hope I’m not voted out first.

Ja mata ne

(here’s a link to the competition: http://imascientist.org.uk/)

Bonding

ほとんど終わりました。Finally, after possibly the craziest two weeks I’ve had out here my experiments are almost over. For a month at least. Not sure quite how I’ll be feeling afterwards. Probably a little down I’m sure, the release of all that stress and lack of sleep are enough to knock anyone for six.

This post is about bonds. Now I could yammer on about chemical bonds, atomic bonds and all those other weak forces that physically bring life together. My favorite (yes I do have one) is of course the hydrogen bond. It’s the thing that gives water all of it’s fantastically bizarre properties and possibly the most important bond to life on this planet. However I’m not talking about those kind of bonds today but instead interpersonal bonds.

 

I’d actually written up a different post, a very negative one focused on a particular aspect of working in Japan that I can’t stand. Maybe I’ll put it up another time because I’ve just had an epiphany. In these final few hours of beamtime I realized just how happy I am to be part of this amazing team.

Now if you’ve been following this blog for a bit you’ll have come to realize that research is hard and this is, in my opinion, even more so at a synchrotron. Our experiments have a limited time frame, if they go wrong there is a potential that we can’t repeat them. It can take months of planning for a few hours of real measurements and so on.

Working at a synchrotron really does put some serious demands on you I feel. It requires intelligence, creativity and above all grit. I think this can be said of my whole team considering we are all huddled around a computer screen at 3am even after 4 days of little sleep. Fingers crossed for a hit.

I never thought I could work like this, never though I’d want to but I’m still here and I love it. The biggest part of that is my team. Battling adversity always brings people together, probably why I’m so close to my friends back home whom I’ve spent many years chasing plastic with.

It’s definitely been difficult here the past few months. We are quite literally doing something that has never been done before. There have been more teething errors and faults than I can count on both hands and feet but somehow we’ve kept going and I really do feel part of something rather than an observer now.

 Chatting dodgy Japanese with Shimada-san, I still switch between polite and slangy by accident, which always amuses him. Talking about life from east to west with Sunam and Daewonog. Just being inspired by Dr. Song’s passion and dedication to his research. The experiences I’m having here with SIRU really are life changing.

Bonds are important and I think often we don’t fight enough to keep them. It’s easy to let a friendship, a tie to someone slide away. We get busy, sure, we get annoyed and act rashly. But these bonds make us.

 

In fact it is this ability, to make none family or reproductive bonds, to form friendships that really sets humans aside. So this is my tribute to bonding. Some can be weak like those holding molecules close together, called wan der vaals for the record. Others are as strong as covalent bonds, how atoms connect to other atoms. All of them however are precious.

A bit gushy I apologize, I’m likely a bit sleep delirious right now but just have a think about the bonds in your life. How close are any of them to breaking? And what can you do to stop that happening?

Ja mata kondo ne.

ぼちぼちでなあ

I decided I didn’t want to tackle a new post until I’d had a decent amount of sleep. It’s been a busy week in Science and life this week and I think the title (meaning little by little) sums up my progress well.

With the great help of my collegues from Liverpool I had Josie working better than ever. Whilst this shoul of been fantastic news Josie is merely a platform for my research, not the project itself. The goal is to use Josie as a means to hold samples in the path of  focussed X-ray beam to produce images.

Sadly although I only slept about 7 hours between Tuesday and Friday trying to get this working, 何も見えなかった、I couldn’t see anything. Or at least maybe we saw something sadly we only had a small amount of sample and one result (whilst still a result) is not a significant one.

So of course after that I deserve a break right? Nah I’ve been stuck in front of a microscope all weekend preparing stuff for more experiments next week. This at least has gone fairly well. I managed to track down some bits and pieces of equipment, a pimping microscope, and my labeling work has borne fruit. It’s left me a little more confident for next weeks experiments.

What I’ve been trying to do is label the individual molecules that make up fibrous structures within living cells called microtubules. Each one is made up of many strands of 2 types of a protein called tubulin. These molecules arranged head to tail to form strands, which then coil together to form the tubules. I’ve been targeting particular amino-acids, the chemicals that make up the tubulin molecules, and labeling them with either a fluorescent residue or gold to help me see them.

Of course work isn’t everything and I’ve been a busy bee in other respects to. I’ve been working hard writing away recently. I’ve once again regained my passion for short fiction and have been furiously writing away and sending stuff out to see if I can get anywhere with it.

Having never been any good at art words were always my thing growing up and, whilst trying as best as I can to not sound conceited, I think I’ve got a bit of a flair for them. Either way this has actually culminated in something. About 3 months ago I entered a competition put out by the Diamond Light source, a synchrotron in Oxford. I managed to place in the top 15 (admittedly out of 65) but it’s a start.

All in all I’m pleased with the way things are going and it actually got me thinking about an odd quirk of the Japanese language. In Japanese you don’t really wish someone good luck. Instead you say “がんばってください“meaning please try your best.

It’s not that they don’t have a word for luck (“運”　for the record), I think it’s more a belief that one can achieve anything with perseverance and grit. I think it’s a mentality shared by us Brits and particularly northerners and I like it as an idea.

Grit is definitely what counts in science, and to be honest anything really. It is far easier to fail that it is to succeed; there are always more ways to fail right? But also no failure is complete, there is always something that can be taken from it.

Right that's all from me, busy busy. Here is a link to my story on light reading.

http://light-reading.org/LightReading/HiglyCommended.html

Ja ne.